Which Sounds Help You Relax or Sleep? What the Research Says

Nature sounds and stress: the strongest evidence

The biggest summary so far pooled results from 18 studies. People who listened to natural sounds reported less stress and annoyance, and better mood and health, than people who did not (Buxton et al., 2021). Water sounds had the largest effect on mood. Birdsong had the largest effect on stress, but that result rests on only two studies.

The results varied a lot from study to study. And most of these studies measured stress during the day, not sleep. So "nature sounds can help you calm down" is fair. "Nature sounds will help you sleep" goes further than the research does.

A few smaller studies point the same way:

• In an online experiment with 295 people, six minutes of birdsong lowered anxiety. Traffic noise did not (Stobbe et al., 2022).
• Not all bird sounds help. Melodic songbirds were rated as restful. Harsh calls, like crows, were not (Ratcliffe et al., 2013).
• Among water sounds, people rated a small stream as more relaxing than a fountain, and a fountain as more relaxing than a big waterfall (Galbrun & Ali, 2013).
• A crackling fire on screen lowered blood pressure, but only with the sound on (Lynn, 2014).

If stress is the main thing keeping you up, our page on stress relief techniques has more ways in.

What you call a sound changes how it feels

One study played people the same noise twice. When they were told it was a waterfall, they felt more restored afterward than when they were told it was machinery (Haga et al., 2016). Same sound. Different label.

This is one study, so treat it as a clue. It suggests that liking a sound, and what it means to you, is part of what makes it calming. If a sound reminds you of a good place, that counts for something.

White, pink and brown noise: what they are

All three are a steady hiss. The color describes how the energy is spread from low pitch to high pitch:

• White noise has equal energy at every pitch. It sounds bright and hissy, like static or an air vent.
• Pink noise has less energy as the pitch goes up. It sounds softer and more even, like steady rain.
• Brown noise drops off faster still, so it is mostly low rumble, like a distant waterfall or the inside of a plane.

Do they help you sleep? A careful review of 38 studies found mixed results. Some found steady noise helped sleep, some found it made sleep worse. The reviewers rated the evidence that steady noise improves sleep as very low quality (Riedy et al., 2021). In one small lab study, low-volume broadband sound helped healthy young adults fall asleep faster on a night set up to be hard to sleep (Messineo et al., 2017). We did not find any published sleep study of brown noise.

You may have read that pink noise deepens sleep. Those studies used short bursts of sound timed to a person's brain waves with live monitoring (Ngo et al., 2013). A steady pink noise track does not do that.

So noise isn't a treatment for sleep problems. If a steady sound covers a snoring partner, traffic or a creaky house, and you like it, that is a fine reason to use it.

Music has the best sleep evidence

A Cochrane review pooled 13 trials with about 1,000 adults who had trouble sleeping. Listening to music before bed improved how well people said they slept. The certainty was moderate. Measures like time to fall asleep were less clear (Jespersen et al., 2022). Slow, calm music you enjoy is a reasonable choice.

Sounds that might get in the way

Sudden loud moments. A large review of noise and sleep found that it is the peaks, not the average level, that wake people. Each 10 dB jump in the loudest moments raised the odds of waking (Basner & McGuire, 2018). That study looked at traffic and planes, not thunder. Still, a thunderstorm track with big claps, or crashing surf, may be better before bed than all night.

Ticking clocks. Watching the clock while trying to sleep raised worry and made it take longer to fall asleep (Tang et al., 2007). That study was about looking at a clock. It did not test the sound of one. Still, anything that keeps you counting time works against the goal. It is one reason a brain that won't shut off at night often gets worse when you check the time.

A dawn chorus. Birdsong is linked with daytime and morning. It may suit winding down or waking up better than a full night.

Loud volume. In one lab study, louder sound raised the body's arousal no matter what kind of sound it was (Erfanian et al., 2025). A nature sound at high volume is still loud.

How to use sound at night

This might help:

1. Pick a sound you like. Your own taste matters, and no sound has been shown to beat the others for sleep.
2. Keep it low. Just loud enough to soften other noises.
3. Put the phone or speaker away from your head, not on the pillow.
4. Use a sleep timer, or pick a steady track with no sudden loud parts.
5. For babies, keep sound machines turned low and well away from the crib. Many infant sound machines can get loud enough at full volume to be a concern (Hugh et al., 2014).

Sound works well alongside other steps. A wind-down routine in the hour before bed, the cognitive shuffle once you are lying down, or 4-7-8 breathing if your body feels wired. If you wake at 3am with your heart racing, see waking up anxious in the middle of the night.

When it's more than a bad night

Sound can make a room easier to sleep in. It is not a treatment for insomnia or anxiety. If you have trouble sleeping most nights for weeks, and it is wearing down your days, that is worth raising with a doctor or a sleep clinician. For more ways in, see insomnia and sleepless nights: where to start. If you're in crisis in the US, you can call or text 988 anytime.